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Wood Case

P

Pegesus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
304
Other than a weight issue anyone forsee any problems with making a wood case?
 
wood amplifies certain noise frequencies, so make sure you decouple everything from the case
 
Make sure you put rubber gaskets or bushings between the parts and the wood. I'd love to make a reall nice Oak case. Heat is your biggest enemy here. You'll need alot of cooling.
 
i've always wanted to do the same thing. with well planned ventilation, you shouldn't have too much heat. i think it would be a great way to reduce the high pitched whine that computers make. wood would amplify the deeper sounds, but could use some of the noise dampening products out there or some well placed cork. also, making sure there aren't any unnecessary openings would combat the sub woofer box effect.
 
Pegesus said:
Other than a weight issue anyone forsee any problems with making a wood case?
Click to expand...

Wood is easier to scratch and dent. Have you considered using wood veneers? You have a choice between the cheapo laminate veneer, or the real stuff. If your patient enough, veneer can be applied to just about anything to make it look fancy :D.
 
Here's an odd question but. When mounting say the MB would i need to attached the MB brass riser screws to metal or could i just fasten them to the wood as well.

I'll have 5 fans in the case plus a zalman heatsink/fan. I was planning on drilling air hole vents in the wood to allow some more air in and out and screening them with a mesh type material to limit the dust.

Why do you reccommend rubber bushings or gaskets?
 
Pegesus said:
Here's an odd question but. When mounting say the MB would i need to attached the MB brass riser screws to metal or could i just fasten them to the wood as well.

I'll have 5 fans in the case plus a zalman heatsink/fan. I was planning on drilling air hole vents in the wood to allow some more air in and out and screening them with a mesh type material to limit the dust.

Why do you reccommend rubber bushings or gaskets?
Click to expand...

Using rubber bushings to isolate vibration has already been mentioned in this thread, so yeah, it is recommended :)

You may want to consider hacking a mobo tray with the i/o panel out of an old case and using it simply for the sake of convience, as it will make mounting the mobo and cards alot easier, and in the end it will probably look alot cleaner. Just an idea.
 
Pegesus said:
Here's an odd question but. When mounting say the MB would i need to attached the MB brass riser screws to metal or could i just fasten them to the wood as well.
Click to expand...
I'd recommend using the standoffs, simply because screwing the motherboard straight to the wood will likely cause it to bend. The bottom of the motherboard is just peppered with all kinds of solder joints.
I'll have 5 fans in the case plus a zalman heatsink/fan. I was planning on drilling air hole vents in the wood to allow some more air in and out and screening them with a mesh type material to limit the dust.
Click to expand...
Don't listen to anyone who says that wood means you need more ventilation. While it is true that thin aluminum and steel conduct heat much better than wood, only a small portion of the heat produced by a computer is dissipated through the case walls. Nearly all the heat is eliminated through ventilation. Plan your ventilation the same way you would for a metal case--there's no need for extra.
Why do you reccommend rubber bushings or gaskets?
Click to expand...
Noise isolation. You can also minimize the subwoofer effect by adding baffles to scatter the sound so you don't get any standing waves.
 
Mohonri said:
...Don't listen to anyone who says that wood means you need more ventilation. While it is true that thin aluminum and steel conduct heat much better than wood, only a small portion of the heat produced by a computer is dissipated through the case walls. Nearly all the heat is eliminated through ventilation. Plan your ventilation the same way you would for a metal case--there's no need for extra ...
Click to expand...
HEAR HEAR! Seconded!
It's kids with no experience and literalists who think the thermal properties of the case material make any difference worth compensating for. Just vent it well and thoroughly, and build on with whatever material you'd like.
Heat rises. Mount a blowhole or higher output fan in your PS. Add an exhaust fan on your backplane.
Mount an intake in the lower front and / or on the bottom. Add a ducted vent that let's your CPU cooler directly draw outside air, or even experiment with reversing your CPU cooler fan and using that duct as a direct exhaust pipe of the hottest air in your case, before it can arm anything else up.

If you mount a fan on the bottom, be sure to increase your feet height or add wheels so that the case claearance to the floor or carpet tuft is equal to or greater than the area of your fan divided by the circumference. That will ensure there is proper airflow available to the fan so it can operate at its maximum CFM rating.

And then tell the idgits posturing about aluminum vs steel vs wood vs their soiled cardboard boxes to just shut the hell up.
 
on the bottom fan thing

using a 120mm fan.
using the formula to determine the area of a circle, pi(r-squared)
r is the radius, 60mm in this example.
r squared is 3600mm(squared)
times pi is 11,309mm(squared)

circumference of a circle is equal to its diameter times pi
That's 120mm x 3.14whatever, or 377mm

11,309mm divided by 377mm is ~30mm. Roughly 1.25".

Make sure the bottom of your case clears the floor by 1.25" and a bottom-mounted fan will suck the coldest air in the room at the maximum flow it is capable of. The fan won't be starved for airflow.
 
Ok this is my fan placement what do you guys think.
The computer will be standing upright as well

fanplacementpn5.png
 
Which side will be pointing up?

At the top right, you have a 80mm intake and a 80mm exhaust right next to each other. They're gonna cancel each other out. Same thing with the top left corner.
 
ok i see what your saying there. Now my concern would be where to put the 2 intakes then. The case will only be 17" long and 11" high.

And the top is where you thought it was.


Wondering if i would be able to put dual fans on top say left side exhaust right side intake or even exhaust/intake on both sides at the top
 
So the computer will actually be oriented as shown in your drawing? That means the ports will be pointed at the floor, right?

I like the 120mm intake right by the CPU. The 80mm intake right next to it, however, is unnecessary. Your RAM doesn't need that much cooling. The exhaust there is fine, but why only use an 80mm fan? If you've got room for the 120mm on the left side, you ought to have room for a 120mm exhaust on the top.

I don't think you need either 80mm fan on the far right side, but it would probably be a good idea to have some sort of outside ventilation for your GPU. I'd suggest putting another exhaust at the top and duct it to the GPU, so you have good ventilation for it.

You don't have a hard drive included in your drawing. Where will that be?
 
Here is another option, all the fan sizes are same directions have been changed.

The orientation is exactly as drawing the pc will stand upright. I honestly don't think i have the room to run ducts to the graphics card they will be dual 7950's btw also. I can consider placing an 80mm exhaust under them though....in fact i wonder if i remove one intake in the top right and place under the gpu's that might work. However it leaves the placement of the fans not symmetrical on all sides which is what i was trying to go for

fansds9.png
 
I think you only need one fan in each top corner--having two intakes at one corner at two exhausts at the other is more than you need. If you're looking to keep things symmetrical with the fans, I'd suggest putting the two top fans in the middle of the top. One intake, one exhaust, and make sure you put a baffle in between so the air doesn't short-circuit
 
Thanks for the advice. I think im gonna go with something like you said and remove the 2 and 2 at the top corners and see if i can get some air towards the bottom near the gpu's. Mostly exhaust.

I'll be posting the completed case here in about a week to show everyone. Thanks for the help again
 
I've been planing in my head a wood pc case to and was thinking of lining the inside with a thin sheet of either aluminum or copper for two reasons: 1) To block EMI/RFI and 2) In the slim chance something catches fire. What kind of metal do you all think I should use, and how thick do you think would be necessary?
 
Nothing in your case is going to get so hot it catches something on fire, even if your case is made of wood. Blocking EMI isn't a bad idea, but unless you're running a really noisy PSU naked right next to a CRT, it's not bad enough to make a difference.
 
I do not think EMI would be a a real problem; anyway it would be the same than using an acrylic case.

But, all wood is not created equal.
Wood expands expands with moisture and contracts when it dries, and different parts of it do not do it equally so it also warps.
Wood humidity depends on temperature so as it heats it dries and contracts; the amount depends on type of wood, moisture change (i.e. initial wood dryness state).You will have temp chages from computer being on or off and further moisture changes from hot air moving (or not) cause of computer ventilation.

If you use boards made of unprocessed wood in a way that restrains them from expanding and contracting with moisture changes they could crack. Consider that wood does not change its dimension along the grain, only transversal to it.
MDF is the most stable form of wood and you won't have this problems with it.
Plywood will only change its thickness so it won't crack but it may warp somewhat if its edges are not fixed.
 
Mohonri said:
Nothing in your case is going to get so hot it catches something on fire, even if your case is made of wood. Blocking EMI isn't a bad idea, but unless you're running a really noisy PSU naked right next to a CRT, it's not bad enough to make a difference.
Click to expand...

Actually I have a friend who's ground wire was rubbing up against a tree or something and shorted out his whole house. Not only did his computer catch fire, but so did his TV. As for the EMI, you're probably right, but I also have to consider incoming EMI to protect the pc from.

Bill
 
thejavabuddha said:
Actually I have a friend who's ground wire was rubbing up against a tree or something and shorted out his whole house. Not only did his computer catch fire, but so did his TV. As for the EMI, you're probably right, but I also have to consider incoming EMI to protect the pc from.
Click to expand...
Unless you have some high-powered switchgear or radio/TV antenna outside your house, you won't need to worry about incoming EMI. Lots and lots of people have windows in their cases, or all-acrylic cases, or just wood cases, and EMI isn't an issue. As for your friend, what happened to him (although unfortunate) doesn't really have any relation to what we're doing here.
 
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